Sex differences in infant vocalization and the origin of language
Oller, Gilkerson, Richards, Hannon, Griebel, Bowman, Brown, Yoo, Warren
Seeking
to discern the earliest sex differences in language-related activities, our
focus is vocal activity in the first two years of life, following up on
recent research that unexpectedly showed boys produced significantly more
speech-like vocalizations (protophones) than girls during the first year of
life.We now bring a much larger body of data to bear on the comparison of
early sex differences in vocalization, data based on automated analysis of
all-day recordings of infants in their homes. The new evidence, like that of
the prior study, also suggests boys produce more protophones than girls in
the first year and offers additional basis for informed speculation about
biological reasons for these differences. More broadly, the work offers a
basis for informed speculations about foundations of language that we propose
to have evolved in our distant hominin ancestors, foundations also required
in early vocal development of modern human infants.